Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 December 20

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December 20

9/11 attacks

People seemed to have been utterly shocked that 9/11 happened; the US started two wars at least partially due to the attacks. Plane hijackings happened all the time, and terrorist attacks happened all the time, so why was it so shocking and unbelievable that a terrorist would one day hijack a plane and crash it into a building? Also, the death toll numbered only several thousand, which pales in comparison to the number of people who die every single day. (Even if we exclude natural causes, Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, the Sichuan earthquake, or even the Afghanistan & Iraq wars caused just as many, or many more, victims.)

I'm sorry if I seem uninformed; although I was born before 9/11, it's one of my earliest childhood memories, so I wouldn't know if people at the time somehow thought a plane couldn't be hijacked and crashed into a building. The few thousand people who died seem insignificant compared to the technological advances, natural disasters, environmental issues, etc. that happened during that time, all of which affected nearly the entire world. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 03:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"One of your earliest childhood memories"? You write remarkably for, at most, a fifteen-year-old. --Trovatore (talk) 06:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm 13, but thanks for the compliment. I'm not the best writer in my grade, or even in my class; maybe you only notice the 15-year-olds who have awful writing skills because they stand out, whereas those who can write well blend in? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 09:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See failure of imagination. Basically, while it was certainly possible for terrorists to fly planes into skyscrapers, quite simply, few had thought of it ahead of time, as it had never happened before. Also keep in mind that the U.S. had had very little experience with Islamist terrorism before 9/11. The biggest such attack before 9/11 was the first World Trade Center attack, which killed six people. On 9/11, a lot of people thought This doesn't happen here, just as they did after the JFK assassination in 1963. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed your link. --Anon, 04:48 UTC, December 20/10.

There are two ways to answer this question. One is to look at the actual differences between 9/11 and other hijackings or terrorist attacks. The other is a more impressionist account which will maybe give you more of an idea of what things were like back then at the actual time.

What was gob-stopping about the attacks were their orchestration. The first plane was what we might call the "normal attack." Like Oklahoma City. Like the Madrid bombings (for an American). They were something you heard about after the fact. "Hmm, that's awful." Then, as you were watching, came the second plane. It was clear that it was no minor operation. It was clear that it was no accident. It was Hollywood, but real. It involved plumes of flame coming out of gigantic buildings. It was looking and seeing little things falling out of the windows — people. It was a panic: what would come next? More planes? Then, the Pentagon. One after another after another. In real time. While you were watching. Not something you read about after the fact. A massively coordinated attack. Not just one guy driving up a truck and setting it off. Not just a few radicals hijacking a plane and then forcing it to fly to Cuba. A group of people clearly conducting suicide attacks with airplanes with stunning results. Major landmarks engulfed in flame and smoke. Unknown numbers dead. (We didn't know the death toll on the day itself. It was not uncommon to assume it was in the tens of thousands — the number who were in the Towers on an average morning.)

I was on the other coast. The bomb squad was deployed to my university, pre-emptively. People walked around in a daze. We went to classes and couldn't think of anything to say. What would come next? There was total uncertainty. Total vulnerability. Who was attacking? Why? Would other cities be targeted? I had recurrent dreams for weeks about mushroom clouds rising above San Francisco. Everybody was nervous. There were cops everywhere and guardsmen with guns and Hummers on all the bridges. And yet, everyone was incredibly polite, patient, and empathetic to other people you saw. We were all in this together; we were all hunkering down.

None of that excuses or explains the wars, certainly not from a rational level. It only begins to approximate what might be a formal discussion of how people deal with assimilating threats. Automobiles kill thousands a day, we shrug and accept it as a fact of modern life. But when thousands die at once, for political reasons, with everyone watching, it becomes something else. Something much scarier. We don't feel in control. The wars were, in a very basic sense, an attempt to re-assert and to re-gain control. I wouldn't argue they necessarily did that or were rational means towards that end. Indeed, we've learned that control is a difficult thing to get, and many have argued that the wars resulted in as much of a loss of control and security as they may have gained. That's a separate question from the psychological effect. The reason one feels the way one feels in such situations is not a rational one. It is not something you can reason your way out of very easily.

I didn't know anyone who died; I was thousands of miles away from New York, D.C., or Pennsylvania. But even over there you could feel that something really tremendous had gone on. It was still a major event in my life, and the lives of all of my friends. You woke up one day and suddenly felt completely out of control. I'm not happy with the military response to it, and wasn't happy with it even at the time, but that's a separate issue. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that account was extremely interesting. My own experience is as different as it could possibly be. I saw the attacks on TV, but I didn't know that it WAS an attack; I thought it was just an accident. I also didn't see people jumping from buildings, didn't sense any nervousness around me, and didn't see any increased security. I don't remember hearing about the Afghan war, and didn't know the Iraq war was related to this until 5-6 years after 9/11. All of this was mostly because I was 4 at the time, and partly because I was in Toronto, which is in some ways farther from NY than the American west.

I'm curious: to all the Americans here who remember 9/11, did you suspect that it was the beginning of a military attack? I'm guessing you didn't know who the attackers were at the time; who did you hope/fear they were? How many more planes did you think were coming--1? 5? 100? Did you ever feel your own life was in danger? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 04:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm Canadian, from Toronto, but I was in my 40s at the time, so I remember it very well. In fact I'd say it was the worst day of my life. As soon as we knew that multiple planes had been crashed, it was obvious that this was some sort of terrorist attack. Islamic terrorists were the best known at the time and therefore the most likely suspects, but they had never achieved something that big. No terrorist attack ever had. If it was Islamists, then there was no particular reason to expect a military followup; they didn't have the capability to mount it. What was entirely possible was that there would be more terror attacks. A few days after the attack I happened to experience a local power outage and I immediately wondered if it was a terrorist attack (although I correctly guessed that it wasn't). If they'd attack the US, why not Canada? And Toronto is Canada's equivalent of New York...

As to the number of planes involved, remember that air travel in the US was shut down within hours of the attack. It did not seem likely that there were a lot more. That afternoon a co-worked said there were 8 planes involved -- 4 had been crashed and 4 were reported hijacked. I immediately wondered if they had counted the same ones twice and I was right about that.

--Anonymous, 05:02 UTC, December 20/10.

I was 11 at the time, and it was my 2nd day of school. I'm from Connecticut, and I went to school in New Canaan, which is basically across Long Island Sound from New York. We heard about it, and we all immediately realized that some entity was attacking us; I didn't get the impression of a military attack, but some people I spoke to (including a couple of my teachers) did. And as a side note, we took I-95 back that day because the Merritt Parkway was jammed. I-95 is right down by the coast in spots, and we could see the smoke from across Long Island Sound; that's when I knew this was a terrorist attack, because the Twin Towers weren't militarily significant but were a landmark whose destruction would burn itself into people's minds. To me, it was obviously psychological, and no government would order an attack that blatant on the US (if anyone remembers, our standing in the world was significantly better) and seriously expect to get away with it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 07:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was 24 at the time. When I heard of the first plane, it was still just a rumor and I figured a small private plane may have struck the tower. Such things have happened before. I was in college at the time, and just went into a class on film, so we were watching a movie for 2 hours. When I finally got out, the worst of the attack was already over. I was seeing replays of the second strike, and they were just finding the film from the firefighters who happened to catch the first strike while filming a training video. By that point, it was pretty clear this was a terrorist attack, not a military operation. There was some concern that other powers might take advantage of the disruption to attack, but that seemed unlikely with our entire military force on highest alert.

I took the rest of the day off from my classes to watch the news unfold. There was a lot of confusion when it came to the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. And a bit of a panic over a couple planes that weren't properly answering their radio, or which had mistakenly turned on their "hijack" automated signal. I saw the WTC7 building collapse live on TV.

The sad thing is, when I found out it was real, my first reaction was to think, "It finally happened." See, Stephen King had written a story back in 1982 called The Running Man. At the climax of the story, the protagonist flies a plane into the skyscraper that houses the company that's trying to kill him. Ever since I had read that story, I wondered when someone would actually try it. But the sheer scale of the attacks was staggering. I expected that some day someone might fly one plane into a building. But four was just astounding. I don't think I'd ever heard of multiple planes even being hijacked simultaneously like that. No one was prepared for what happened, because the normal hijackings we'd seen all involved the hijackers forcing the plane to land, or trying to fly it out of the country. This... this was just unprecedented.

For several days, I was still worried about regular bombings or other terrorist attacks. With the airlines grounded, a repeat attack wasn't possible, but a car bomb or suicide bomber was still a possibility. Luckily, nothing else happened. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

As to why the attacks were not anticipated: well, in principle they were. It had been reported that Islamic terrorists had planned to crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower, and (as mentioned in another thread above) Tom Clancy had written a novel featuring an airliner crashed deliberately into the Congress building. But people anticipate all sorts of unlikely scenarios without expecting them to happen. It was peacetime, a time to relax after the Cold War; it was the strongest country in the world; the attack was intricately planned (coordinated simultaneous hijackings) in a way that previous terror attacks had generally not been; and it involved a weapon never actually used before. There was plenty of reason to be surprised. --Anonymous, 05:08 UTC, December 20/10.

I'm an American living in Italy. As I numbly watched on my television screen the planes crashing into the Towers, I realised that hundreds of people, like myself, had just ceased to exist as they were instantly consumed in balls of fire that appeared mesmerisingly diabolical to my unbelieving eyes. My mind also registered that it was the dawning of a new, bleak, and frightening era. Mankind, on 11 September 2001, had passed the point of no return.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not all of mankind, but at least Americans. It was certainly a wake-up call for a lot of them. HiLo48 (talk) 07:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

11 September was not an attack against America, it was an attack against everybody. The USA just happened to be targeted that day. We are all potential targets. The new millenium began the instant the first plane entered the North Tower heralding the violence and bloodshed which has been spreading like an ugly red stain all over the globe since.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not that bad. Vastly more people were killed in World War I, for example. This seems like the dawn of a new era or whatever because we're living in it, but in the grand scheme of history it's not that big of a deal, at least in terms of bloodshed. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect a lot of folks elsewhere who have experienced repeated war on their own soil before didn't see it as quite that extreme. If you are referring to what some would describe as the American administration's military overreaction to the attacks, that's yet another slant. HiLo48 (talk) 08:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

In most terrorist attacks before that, the terrorists tried hard to save their own lives, except maybe one person at a time in Israel that was clearly confused or absolutely desperate. This was the first time that a large number of people agreed to end their own lives in order to achieve a terrorist act. It is a small aspect of the psychological impact, but it changed the game for anti-terrorist measures, because it meant that they can acheive much more, being close to or inside the device they use. It also calls for pre-emptive action, because you can't punish them after the events. --85.119.27.27 (talk) 08:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The use of planes full of people to crash into buildings full of people forever changed the dynamics of international terrorism. There's no safety anywhere. Terrorists can attack a train, crash an airliner into one's workplace or neighbourhood, blow up discoteques and hotels. An innocent shopping trip downtown can end up with a person's body parts being shovelled from the main street.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow Jeanne, your description is extremely vivid. It certainly doesn't feel like a new era to me, perhaps because I have no memory of the "old era", but wasn't the Cold War much more terrifying? I don't find it worrying that terrorists might bomb the subway I'm taking--I'm much more likely to die crossing the street anyways--but I would be terrified if a superpower could destroy civilization at a moment's notice. How about events like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan genocide, or the genocidal war fought in Europe in the 1990's? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 09:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

People who lived through the Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War say that they weren't too shocked by 9/11, because they had a thicker skin. (That's what my parents told me.) I, however, was only 21 on 9/11. So, I was incredibly shocked and outraged by those events. I began to see the world in a very hostile light. The behavior of some countries (like Germany) leading up the war in Iraq only re-inforced my view of the world as full of enemies of the United States.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I do think there was a different reaction from people more used to terrorism than Americans are (or were) - I'm British, and pIRA terrorism was a regular feature of the news as I grew up. Actually watching the events live on TV was horrible, an editor above described the realisation that the tiny specks falling from the towers were people - that was the moment it changed from watching some surreal nightmare into something much more real and much more disturbing. A few days later, as I recall, I had a long chat in the pub with a Spanish chap about the American reaction that we had seen or heard. I think we both felt - as people who had grown up with the reality of pIRA and ETA attacks in our own countries that some Americans seemed to have been living in a kind of dream, insulated from the realities of terrorism. That's not intended as any kind of criticism (though I could go off on a long one about NORAID and American funding of pIRA terrorism), just that for people who have grown up with the constant knowledge that we are potential targets, it was hard for us to understand the feelings and reactions of people who have lived safe from such threats for such a long time and then been struck by such a massive attack. DuncanHill (talk) 10:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, German was the first nation to offer condolences and aid to the US after the attacks. It was only when we went to war with Afghanistan (and later Iraq) that they took a more critical stance. They certainly don't deserve to be called "enemies." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

9/11 was shocking to me for the following reasons:

1. They blew a huge hole in the Pentagon, killing a general and 124 others. Our military headquarters apparently didn't have anti-aircraft defenses??
2. The savagery of the events was deeply disturbing. People were burning to death on TV and then committed suicide by jumping out of the buildings. Flight attendants had their throats slit with box cutters on the flights. To top it all off, these were all innocent people. They didn't do anything to the terrorists.
3. The passengers on board one of the flights fought back upon hearing it was a suicide mission. It was deeply moving to me when I heard of their bravery.
4. Palestinians rejoiced in the streets upon hearing about the attacks. It shocked me because I realized that they were incredibly evil people who hated us for no valid reason whatsoever.
5. They almost destroyed our Capitol building. That is the most important building, symbolically, in Washington D.C.

The reason it didn't shock you was because you were too young to understand how unusual these events were. If you were older, you would have been shocked. There were large-scale terrorist attacks when I was young (like the Oklahoma City bombing), but I didn't care, and I don't think about that attack today often.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm still shocked when I see my fellow Americans unable to understand why the Palestinians celebrated. There is no question that the US support for Israel makes us seem at least as evil to them. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 11:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I said I see no valid reason for them to celebrate the attacks or to hate us. We do give both Israel and Egypt aid as part of our obligations under the Camp David Accords that Jimmy Carter signed. We also use our aid to Israel as leverage to compel them to negotiate with the Palestinians. We also give the Palestinians about $400 million a year in aid. So, it was very confusing to me when I saw the Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks. We came very close to giving them their own state a year earlier, but Yasser Arafat walked out of those meetings, thus condemning his people to eternal conflict. The Palestinians wouldn't have it any other way, despite their insistance to the contrary.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 03:52, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If only validity wasn't subjective. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 03:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a fascinating discussion. Not for the obvious responses of those who were alive at the time, and who understood the significance of the event at the time... but for the question. I'm old enough for 9/11 to have been a distinct event that I understood the significance of as soon as it was clear it wasn't an accident... or understand the wider implications... but young enough to have never seen Kennedy's assassination, or even remember the Challenger disaster.

If you weren't alive on that day, or weren't old enough to appreciate it's significance... please don't denigrate the very real and very accurate reactions of the people that were either there, or watching. It was an incredible tragedy and a world event. I received a call from a friend telling me to turn on the TV... and at the point the second tower was hit it was painfully clear to me, and everybody else I talked to at the time, that it wasn't an accident. The second tower was the very clear indication that this was something different. Shadowjams (talk) 10:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm British, and only discovered what was happening when I came back home with my kids at 3pm local time (10am New York time) and they turned on the TV. My older daughter, now 19, vividly recalls the moment, and me saying: "This is important, and will be one of those things you will always remember when you're older". Aside from horror at what was happening to all those poor people, some reactions here were more complex. Rightly or wrongly, along with the undoubted outrage and sympathy there was also curiosity as to whether, for example, American attitudes to issues like the Provisional IRA and the Northern Ireland Peace Process would alter now that the US had seen its own innocent citizens terrorized and murdered on a large scale by fanatics with a political agenda. There was also unease about how intelligent and effective the US response would be now they had been awakened with a vengeance, and I have to say that concern has been borne out, to a degree - for example, the ongoing throwaway characterisation of opponents as "incredibly evil people who hate us for no valid reason whatsoever". I suspect any country that experienced dreadful events like 9/11 would see it in black and white as "the point of no return" and "an attack against everybody", but in truth I think non-Americans see it more as a natural progression on what had gone before. The world gets smaller, information travels further and faster, and dangerous, angry people have more opportunities to do greater and greater damage in the name of whatever Big Truth obsesses them. Suicide bombing was nothing new in 2001; the September 11 perpetrators just thought bigger than any previous ones had done, and got lucky that their unfortunate victims did not see them coming. The globe was already stained bright red by violence and bloodshed before 2001, and in plenty of countries the inhabitants had understood for years that a trip to the shopping mall might possibly end in a body bag courtesy of someone seeking to right a perceived wrong by butchering his neighbours. It's just that such events were not plastered all over Western media, and did not fundamentally affect the way we live our lives in our own countries as 9/11 and its aftermath have done. Perhaps that's the most crucial difference. Karenjc 11:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was in my second last year of high school in Australia and remember seeing it on the morning news. At first I thought the images related to a new movie. When the full story unfolded, I think I agree with Karenjc's view - that while the event was shocking, and it would have been unimaginable had it happened in Australia, it did not strike me as particularly surprising to have occurred in the US. It seemed like the culmination of a natural progression resulting from American foreign policy (in a loose sense - not just deciding who to side with or which countries to invade, but the sort of general international attitude). Given the increasing scale of attacks on either side - including the embassy bombings just a couple of years earlier, it seemed like a reasonably natural development. Plus, I had some memory of attacks of comparable magnitude in the US, like the Oklahoma bombings. Although this was bigger, it was not so much bigger as to be truly unimaginable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Time to reread Eric Hoffer's The True Believer. Bus stop (talk) 12:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You do write really well for a 13-year-old, 99.237.234.245. As to your question "why was it so shocking and unbelievable that a terrorist would one day hijack a plane and crash it into a building?", what do you think the reaction to something happening on the same scale now would be? How do you think you personally would react to something like that if it happened now? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 12:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I remember reading in the 1980s reading about disaster exercises that were conducted in London; the scenario was that an 747 had crashed into Kings Cross Station - London's biggest transport hub. But it doesn't matter how well you prepare for things, you can't protect yourself against every conceivable threat. Alansplodge (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't shocked that something like that could be done, but was shocked to see it happening anyway. I had been living in New York City and only just moved to Seattle a few months before 9/11. I had lots of friends in the city, some living or working quite close to the towers. I had been to the top of them more times than I can count, and had seen them basically every day for years. I first heard about the attack while driving home after dropping my wife off at the airport for a flight. As it turned out, she boarded the plane but it never took off. And no one I knew in New York was killed--although some people I know knew people who were. And some of my NYC friends spent the day staring out their apartment windows, watching the smoke and then the collapsing towers. Others were caught in the dust clouds and chaos. So... no, it's not like I once believed something like that could not be done, rather it was shock over seeing a place I knew so well destroyed like that, coupled with concern for friends who could have been affected. These days, the image that comes to mind most often is, strangely, the atrium with the palm trees in it near the base of the towers. I had been in there so many times and seen music recitals there, and randomly wandered into orchid shows and all kinds of odd things. It was a beautiful place that meant a lot to me--so seeing photos of it in ruins was powerful. Later I visited the city and ground zero. The atrium had been repaired, but there used to be a pedestrian walkway bridge from it to the towers, and the place that used to be the entrance to the walkway was just a large window with a view toward the utter destruction of ground zero--a giant hole where once there had been giant towers. Anyway, I definitely understand why the towers were targeted. What other pair of buildings could be destroyed like that and cause as much shock to as many people? Also, in response to some other comments in this thread--it did not surprise me that "something like that could happen in the US". Nor was it hard to understand why some people would do such a thing. I did worry that day that my government's reaction would be overblown knee-jerk vengeance. And as it turned out my government's reaction was even more blindly vengeful than I feared. The best thing for me was that just a week afterward my wife and I took a long-planned week long road trip through the wilds of British Columbia, camping in the forests far from any news source. Thanks to that, we managed to *stop* thinking about 9/11 within a couple weeks. Pfly (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I marvel that many Europeans here presume that my American citizenship has blinded me from the threat of terrorism which has plagued the earth for many decades now. I lived for many years in Ireland during the bloody and tense conflict known as the Troubles. I experienced many bomb scares in Dublin's city centre; in fact, I worked in Talbot Street, site of a UVF car bomb which killed and maimed many people-mostly women-only a few years previously. Had the same group decided to do a repeat performance when I worked there, I could have been killed and my American passport and accent would have done nothing to protect me. I have often visited Northern Ireland, including the harrowing bomb site in Lower Market Street in Omagh where a lovely teenaged lad was killed (among 30 other innocent shoppers) in 1998. I happened to be at the Tower of London on 5 September 1975 when there was a bomb warning. It turned out to have been a hoax; however, the one miles away outside the Hilton was not. I was lucky not to have been blasted apart by an IRA bomb at the age of 17, with the British papers showing my photo and commenting on the irony of how my paternal grandparents had been Irish. In early 1982, my Dublin boyfriend and I took a long walk from Dundalk to Newry on the main A1 road, which had been detoured due to a bomb scare. We had tarried a while at the picturesque Ravensdale Woods, not far from the spot where Captain Robert Nairac had been tortured and killed. Anthony and I were lucky not to have been abducted by roving members of the Glenanne gang, who operated in that area. Luck. It's the only shield one has against the shrapnel, flames, and powerful blast waves of the terrorists' bombs. Yes, I am American. One who has never been blinded to the reality of the violent world we live in. Not since the Sunday morning of 24 November 1963 when I watched Jack Ruby step forward to fire a pistol into the stomach of Lee Harvey Oswald. The 11 September attacks was not the advent of terrorism, it just brought more people into the line of fire.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I want to suggest again that a "failure of imagination" is a rational way to talk about an emotional blindside. We can all say, "Oh, sure, terrorists might set of a nuclear bomb someday in the future." But we never think that day will be today, and we never really can guess how we'll feel about it. Even more mundane things catch one off guard. I had a cat which I really only half-way liked. One day he was hit by a car. I had of course imagined previously what it would be like to experience the loss of this cat. I never would have, or could have, imagined the shock, trauma, and grief that came on the day it actually occurred. It was really horrible and for weeks it completely laid me low. It was a hollowness and a depression, it was a perfect description of the traumatic event, I had nightmares about it for months, and so on. I'm not a terribly sentimental person, but it really hit me. I bring this up as an analogy between anticipation and reality. Emotional things are disconnected from logical things in ways we often can't anticipate, even if we try to. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I know what you mean. When Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a practice run hours before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I was crushed, much more so than I was on 9-11. I'm 30 now, 21 back then, but the whole immediacy and local nature of each tragedy made each feel different. I live in Vancouver, and the anticipation for 8 years of us getting the games, after much debate and protest, finally making it work. Boom, guy dies. It was crushing.

On the other hand, the US had a bad rep foreign rep, even then, with bombing the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. Was an attack a complete surprise to me? No. Was that particular method and location? Yes. But to me it most certainly did not feel like an "attack on all of us" or a war against the West. It was an attack on the US. Later attacks in London were against American allies, not the UK in particular, since Blair was a major Bush supporter. Aaronite (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Coupled with the personal loss of your cat, knowing that it was gone forver from your life was also the harsh concept of the sudden brutality and indiscrimnate manner of death. A chain of events leading to the cat's decision to cross the road at the fateful moment a car was traveling along-and in a flash the cat ceased to exist when seconds before it had been sentient. Same with the victims of a terrorist bomb. An impulse to walk down a certain street, pass the wrong car the moment the timer goes off, and all the hopes, dreams, thoughts, feelings, memories they ever had are forver blasted out of their minds. To be replaced by nothingness.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget that there was a briefing document which not only named Bin Laden specifically as a potential threat, but even suggested ways in which he might attack the United States. It wasn't failure of imagination, it was just lack of preparedness. Corvus cornix_talk 20:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be difficult for a young person who has lived most of his life in the post-9/11 world to understand how different the mindset was before the attacks. I remember visiting the Capitol when in high school. You walked through a metal detector, put on a name tag that read, "VISITOR," and then you were free to explore (with members' areas off-limits, of course). I was walking around the corridors trying to find the rotunda when a security guard approached. He said, "You want to see the rotunda? Follow me." He led me through a side door, said, "Here you go," and left. The rotunda was completely empty -- it had already closed. For 15 minutes, I was all alone under the dome with all the statues and paintings. Finally, another guard stopped in and said, "Um, you know this is closed, right?" after which I apologized and left. Could you imagine them letting a nameless civilian walk around the rotunda by himself today? They might shoot him on sight. The last time I visited Washington, the Capitol looked like a fortified military compound, blocked off by concrete barriers. It was very sad to see. Back in the pre-9/11 era, Americans simply didn't think about terrorism that much. Sure, there had been the first WTC attack, and the embassy and USS Cole bombings, and some media had reported about this Saudi billionaire named bin Laden who wanted to attack America. But terrorism was something that happened in other countries. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I had a similar experience more than 30 years ago that illustrates what's changed, and how much innocence has been lost. One cold night in December, I think it was 1976 or 77, I went wandering around Capitol Hill with a camera and a tripod taking night pictures of the Capitol and Mall. I was set up on one of the west terraces, the only soul out there, when a Capitol police officer approached. We exchanged small talk about the cold, and he mentioned that tripods weren't allowed in the terrace. Since he and I were the only people who could possibly trip over my tripod, he observed that he'd take a walk around the building and I shouldn't be there when he came back around. Given that it takes 45 minutes to go around the Capitol, that wasn't a problem for me. Would never happen now. I still have a slide of the dome I took that night. Back then, you could just walk in the Capitol during visiting hours and look around - no metal detectors, no nothing. It isn't possible anymore to stand on the Capitol terrace alone in the night and contemplate the city. A great deal of security (the real kind), freedom and public participation in civic life has been lost, and we all knew it conclusively on 9/11. Acroterion _(talk) 04:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

One more pair of thoughts from me. A lot of the "lack of imagination" discussion seems to be talking about policymakers rather than "the people." There are some people in our government (and elsewhere) who spend all day long thinking about obscure and potentially unlikely military threats to the country. They consider lots of possible enemies and make a job out of being worried about things that could happen far in the future. Some of these people certainly did think that extremist attacks on US soil would continue; some of them even thought that airline security might be a weak point. None of that matters when discussing the popular effects of such things. The grand majority of the people at any given time are not worried about such things. There is a huge difference in talking about whether the government analyst was unprepared for such an event and whether the "man on the street" was. They are apples and oranges.

The other thought. 9/11 was different from Oklahoma City (at least my experience of it) because 9/11 felt like the beginning of lots of attacks. It felt like the work of an organization, not a lone nut. It felt like a Pearl Harbor before a war. It didn't feel like the end product of a series of events, but the beginning of more events. That is, I think, what a lot of people mean when they say they felt like they were "at war". Oklahoma City was a tragedy, but it didn't feel like a beginning. Now, as it turns out, the "war" was rather understated. Whether this is because of US intervention in the Middle East or not is something future historians will no doubt argue over. (Another way to put it is that American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan channeled a lot of violence into those regions, to the benefit of the mainland US, which got by with almost no serious terrorist violence afterwards.) But in terms of understanding the mindset of the times, I don't think it was uncommon for people to wonder if this wasn't going to become the "new normal," the "way we live now." It didn't, thank goodness, though in trying to guarantee that we ended up creating far more violence for far more people, in the long run, but that's no new story... --Mr.98 (talk) 00:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

To epxand on something Karenjc said, the guys responsible for September 11 were amazingly lucky. None of the big attacks since then have been that big, and most of the time they are either foiled or just don't work properly. Is this because security is so much better since 2001? Probably not; terrorists are just not that good at terrorism, and when a group gets all of its smartest people together and then gets them to kill themselves during an attack that they were only able to carry out because they got lucky, how could such a success be repeated? Adam Bishop (talk) 04:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Having read a bit about how and why the towers collapsed (and ignoring the conspiracy theories), it seems to me highly unlikely that the people behind the attack intended to bring the towers down--I sometimes wonder whether they were as shocked as I was when both towers collapsed. What would the general reaction have been if the result was "merely" fireballs over a few floors of the two buildings' 100+ floors? It would have been shocking still, I think, but much less so, and much more quickly passing. As for the feeling of the event being the "beginning" of something--I had that feeling too, and even wondering in passing whether my new home city of Seattle would have a plane crashing into it. I quickly decided this was highly unlikely, but there was a period of perhaps 30 minutes when it felt like everything was uncertain and anything could happen. Within a few hours though, for me, it no longer felt like anything more was possibly about to happen. I can see why some people felt like a war had begun, but I felt nothing like that myself. Within hours I felt that the attack was over and that any "war" to follow would be largely initiated by the US. However, I had the luxury of living in Seattle instead of New York City by that time. For the people who did live in NYC, at least the ones I knew, the sense of dread, of the not-unreasonable idea that another attack could occur at any time, remained strong and in the forefront of one's mind for many weeks, even months. Finally, in terms of a "new normal", as it has effected me, the most annoying aspect has been an enhanced border security with Canada. I grew up in Buffalo, right on the US-Canada border, and I frequently drove to Toronto. The border crossing was a relaxed affair. You needed no more than a driver's license, for the driver at least, and for passengers a simple statement of citizenship. Even the driver's license was often passed over, with the customs people just asking your citizenship and intended length of stay--taking your word for it. Crossing the border here in the Pacific Northwest was almost as lax when I first moved here around May 2001. But shortly after 9/11 border security was tightened and remains so. I haven't crossed over into Canada for years now--but the last I knew a driver's license would not suffice--you'd need a passport or something equally strong. Perhaps things have been relaxed a bit, I'm not sure. Either way I find it highly troublesome that the US-Canada border become significantly more difficult to cross since 9/11 (I won't say "more secure", since it is still trivial to sneak across, if you really cared to do so). Having grown up as an American in the shadow of Toronto, I felt this desire to "strengthen the border" to be like, metaphorically, an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. When Americans actually fear Canadians you know something is horribly wrong, I reckon. Pfly (talk) 11:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, well, the terrorists came through Canada, don't you know! Crossing the border has been the most different thing for me too...once in 2002, we even had our car searched by the customs clerk and a soldier with a rather large gun. And now we need a passport. The US consulate in Toronto also now looks like a fortress, and I guess another annoying thing is that the level of American jingoism has vastly increased in the past nine years, haha. But this is true in Canada too. Our soldiers in Afghanistan are protecting our freedoms and paying the ultimate sacrifice, and all that. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting stories. My parents and I tried to visit the White House a few years ago as Canadian citizens. Needless to say, none of us were allowed in because we weren't American citizens, even though my parents were permanent residents of the US and had visited the White House before.

As for crossing the border, as of a few weeks ago, you need a passport or an Enhanced Driver's License to cross into the US. I imagine the same applies to crossing into Canada. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 04:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I lived downtown Manhattan but saw it on TV. We assumed it was an accident for about three minutes. I knew the blink sheik had a major court date scheduled but I was positive someone had a heart attack as the Empire State building had a similar incident. Within a few minutes, the news said that an aviation expert said it was a jumbo jet. We knew it was an attack. People were eerily calm around me even though family members were trapped. Looking back, I was in denial.75Janice (talk) 22:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)75Janice

Some mention should be made in this discussion of hindsight bias and the historian's fallacy. Most everything seems obvious and likely after it has happened; only in retrospect do events like 9/11 or the attack on Pearl Harbor seem predictable and unshocking. The challenge of understanding past events is that it's tempting to read history backwards—to succumb to the belief that people in the past should have seen the future coming. There is simply too much information, and too many contingencies, to know what lies ahead. There are always a few Cassandras around, to be sure, but their voices are awash in a chorus of warnings of looming disasters that never materialize. Don’t forget the Jeane Dixon effect: we only remember the predictions that came true, not the many more that didn’t. —Kevin Myers 06:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

How many prisoners are atheist?

Ricky Gervais claims here that ... "75 percent of Americans are God-­‐fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-­‐fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists." How close is he to the correct numbers? Llamabr (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Religion in the United States, he's pretty close. 76% of Americans are Christian as of 2008 (see chart at bottom). There are conflicting numbers in various places in the article on Athiests, I see numbers anywhere from 1.6% to up to 15%. I don't see info on prison population there, however. --Jayron32 17:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

And how do you know that they fear God? Is being Christian enough for that? 80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Good question -- I don't know quite what it means to fear god, or how to measure it. But I'm more interested in the population of prisoners, mainly in the USA, who are atheist. Do prisons collect this information? Or is there a survey? I know comics are not generally required to cite their sources, but I'm mainly interested in evidence for that last number. Llamabr (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Fear of God is a special form of belief in God.

There is also the Demographics of atheism article, which generally suggests that socioeconomic factors and especially levels of education and intellectuality affect belief in God.

The point seems to be that "fearing God" is not an effective crime deterrent. But it's more just that the more professional, educated, and intellectual you are, the less likely you are to be God-fearing and the less likely you are to be a convicted criminal. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Remember that "fear of God" is not about being scared. It's an old use of the word fear, a deep reverence that goes beyond mere respect. --Trovatore (talk) 19:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, though in common usage it might easily be taken more "literally", too, by some of those who practice it. Our Fear of the Lord article also discusses this variety of religious experience. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

In the UK, according to a Home Office report, about 60% of prisoners identify as Christian, and 30% as having no religion. Of that 30%, 1% (i.e. 0.3% of the population) claimed to be either atheist or agnostic. About the US, I have no clue. Marnanel (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

When you are fed this information that atheists are much less likely to be sent to prison than Christians are, it appears that you are supposed to come away thinking "Gosh, atheists are much more likely to be moral people than Christians are". Perhaps atheists are more likely to be moral people than Christians are, for all I know. But there are a number of rather large holes in such an argument, starting with the obvious point that morality and legality are orthogonal, and moving on to the slightly more subtle point that atheists are likely, at present, to be middle to upper class and white, and the working class and racial minorities are over-represented in the prison population. Marnanel (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Atheists don't usually (let's forget the angry Youtube teenage atheist population for the purpose of my point for a second, shall we) identify themselves with the grouping - they don't go around saying things like "us atheists are this or that", whereas Christians tend to do just that. So I think the intended message is really the other way around. It's not "atheist are more moral people than Christians" it's "Christians aren't nearly as moral as they proclaim themselves to be". It's just a rebuke, arguably flawed, as you say, to the daily bombardment of atheists with the misconception that there can be no morality without religion. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure that thinking of atheists and their educational background as epiphenomenal really undermines the argument. It changes its scope certainly: "well educated and middle class people are both likely to be atheist and law-abiding". But that seems to just support the original argument, or at least helps to undermine the issue of whether being christian is valuable because it makes the world a safer place, etc. Though my original question was really just about statistics. Thanks. Llamabr (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Here apparently are the stats he is quoting. meltBanana 18:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Another possible interpretation of the statistics is that being sent to prison makes you more likely to become "God-fearing". I know it would put the fear of God in me! Dbfirs 19:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

We even have an article on There are no atheists in foxholes for a similar claim. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

There are, of course, atheists in foxholes. But I have seen evidence that some religious groups recruit heavily in prisons. Nation of Islam, for example, and Scientology, if I recall. All of which means that careful attention would have to be made in conversion rates. We've had similar discussions on here before; see here for some parsing of the statistics.

I think it is clear that most people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics have higher levels of education, and generally higher socioeconomic status. That alone would account for most discrepancies in incarceration. It's also certainly obvious from said statistics that being religious does not keep one from committing crimes or even being a horrible person. That also seems fairly intuitively obvious as well, and is the reason we have an elaborate system of civil justice to try and keep people in line well above and beyond any religious sentiments. Anyone who has spent any time around real human beings knows that they have all sorts of clever ways to justify behavior that is strictly against the tenets of their religion. That doesn't make atheists inherently virtuous or the religious inherently wicked. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This, combined with the gang mentality in prisons, means that few people can avoid religion in prison. Joining a racial or social group is necessary in prisons for protection against rivals, and joining a group that is heavily influenced by a religion (Christianity, Islam, etc.) would be difficult to avoid. Plus, the trauma some people feel at being put into prison makes it more likely to cling onto a belief that says you can be forgiven for your deeds. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

And if I ever went to prison, I'd find the religion that gave you the most breaks (good food, time off etc) and stick that one down on the form. Nanonic (talk) 22:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be the Church of the New Song (what? no article‽) Marnanel (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A prison visitor told me some prisoners started going to church,Bible readings etc because of boredom and because they hoped to get in the staffs' good books.An ex-prisoner told me you asked for a Bible,not to read but because the thin paper was excellent for hand rolling cigarettes.Hotclaws (talk) 02:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

How do you scape nihilism?

Does anything have meaning? What is the matter of hitting someone in the head with a hammer, he is only a water + carbon? Is hedonism the only way out of hedonism? 80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You have morality and ethics. --Jayron32 17:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I understand the rules, but why should I follow them?80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Because humanity depends on it. If people didn't follow some rules, then we ourselves suffer. If you expect others not to hit you in the head with a hammer, then it seems reasonable to establish that as some sort of general rule. --Jayron32 17:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

• But here you are, starting with an axiom that not anyone share: "humanity has to survive". Not every one in the planet shares this view. The Voluntary human extinction movement, for example, wouldn't agree with you. But there are also less radical cases, when it comes down to decide what to do with your life: is drinking beer and watching TV more virtuous than reading or painting or acquiring culture? Quest09 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you break the rules, you get red-carded out of the game. Or are penalized in some other way.

BTW, a person is more than just a bag of chemicals. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

So, I a only have to follow rules if I believe I'll get caught. And about the bag of chemicals. Are we more than that just because you say that? But even if you are right, an ant is also more than a bag of chemicals too. Should I worry about treating one? Quest09 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A dead body is just a bag of chemicals, and I mean that in a directly observable way and not "metaphysically" or anything. Living people are not. Consider your own subjective experience. What is it like? Is your subjective experience right now in any way like "just a bag of chemicals"? Without knowing for sure, I expect that, like mine, it isn't (even if it is obviously and strongly tied to a biochemical substrate).

There are other reasons to follow rules, the best way is to understand why they are there and what they are for and choose to follow them on that basis.

A living ant is more than a bag of chemicals, too; it would be a shame to have to kill one for no reason. ;) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

My personal belief is that "should" statements are really commands disguised as statements of fact. When somebody says, "You should follow the rules", this is really just a polite way of saying, "Follow the rules". So I will say it: Follow the rules. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have the illusion that you are more than a bag of chemicals. That makes you feel better about yourself. Actually, you - and me - are bags of chemicals with electric processes going on. Quest09 (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that cool, though? How does that happen, you know?

Getting interested in finding answers to questions is one practical way to "scape nihilism". There are a lot of other problems like this that might also be interesting to consider. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

People tend to feel better about being compelled to do something if they feel they had a choice in the first place. "It would be better if you chose to follow the rules" sounds better than "If you don't follow the rules, we lock you in a small room with a rapist." They actually both mean the same thing, but for some reason people feel better being told the first thing. --Jayron32 17:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You are right about that. Indirect request are more effective. However, that doesn't say how you should choose what to request. Specially, when you leave the obvious behind: do not kill, do not rape, how do you fall into an abyss of emptiness? Quest09 (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, having worried long and hard about this question for a couple of decades, I think it does come down to a kind of hedonism. I think morality is emergent from some kind of basic urge, which is probably something like curiosity. This makes the whole thing pointless, but fortunately since the basic urge is universal, we don't care. I also entertain the possibility that the urge in question may be cultural, and that members of extremely different cultures such as, say, Aztecs, may have functioned on some different basic motivation. (Some societies just don't seem to seek knowledge with any great urgency.) Also note that the urge itself, whatever it is exactly, the thing which fundamentally drives us to action, is not one of the world's most important ideas; the quality of being fundamental shouldn't be confused with the quality of being meaningful or useful. Oh, and the meaning of life article is always quite reassuring, in a woolly sort of way. 213.122.7.36 (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Assume nothing has any meaning. There's no ultimate right or wrong. Nothing has inherent value. From that place sure, there's no reason why you shouldn't do anything, but there's no reason why you should either. From that place, why would one take any action whatsoever? So, try it. See the pointlessness of every possible action you could take. Don't do anything at all. Don't daydream, don't eat, don't think about anything. Why should you do such pointless things? See how long you can keep up that level of not-doing. How long before you find yourself doing something anyway, like thinking about something, or feeling bored, or wondering what that sound was, or wanting a drink of water. Ten seconds? Why do you do things? Do you chose to do the things you do, or do they just happen and you act as if you chose? Who are you anyway? Nihilism is a way of thinking about reality, not a way of being. Thinking about reality is already taking action. Nihilism says "you" are meaningless, yet you cannot help but do things. Why? That's the question that led me from nihilism to meaning-within-pointlessness anyway. Sorry I can't be clearer. Pfly (talk) 21:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nihilism is the belief that nothing you do matters. There are no morals because morals have no meaning. The way out of this is when you actually experience a situation where your decisions have an impact on someone else's life. Maybe it won't matter to "the big picture," but being able to help a person get medical treatment that saves their life can change your outlook. Or having someone else do the same for you. There may not be an objective morality, or an objective "meaning" to life, but humans are social creatures, and our interactions with society matter in that way.

To put it another way, if nihilism were correct, anarchy would be the proper mode of civilized behavior. However, it turns out that this isn't the best way for a species to survive, or even for an individual to prosper. Individuals tend to find purpose through the interaction with others, especially when forming a social support structure. It turns out, once you look just beyond your own life, nihilism itself has no meaning. But interacting with others in a constructive manner can create meaning for your life. It may not "matter in" the long run, but it can matter to you & those around you. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at Existentialism. For further reading, see: Nishitani, Keiji (1990). The self-overcoming of nihilism. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791404386. Retrieved 20 December 2010..Smallman12q (talk) 23:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I feel I should point out that "anarchy" as a political term does not necessarily imply disorganisation or chaos. Quite the reverse in some cases. Marnanel (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and also existentialism and nihilism ought not be conflated. Roughly, nihilism is the notion that there is no meaning, whereas existentialism is that you must create your own meaning. Not the same thing at all. --Trovatore (talk) 01:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Er, that's what I said. I hadn't considered my solution to be existentialist, but I suppose that applies. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I was mostly responding to Smallman12q. --Trovatore (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea that meaning is discovered through deeds is central to Logotherapy, and is countered by The current Achewood strip. 81.131.17.87 (talk) 04:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The Achewood character's mistake was making a choice of deeds that did not mean much and had trivial outcomes. 92.15.0.200 (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Utilitarianism has always seemed a superior agnostic-compatible ethic and world view to me. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 06:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I recommend the 1977 book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie. Gabbe (talk) 17:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

There are two issues that are often conflated in these discussions: your personal rationalizations for shy you do what you do, and the reaction of others around you if you start doing things that are socially unacceptable (like going on a kill-crazy rampage). The first of those is completely within your control, the second not so much. You might be interested in the book The Social Construction of Reality. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps Of The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right.Smallman12q (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Slave

I noticed in many older works of literature (such as Shakespeare) you will see the use of 'slave' as an insult, implying that the person is low and powerless. But this begs the question, whose slave? 24.92.70.160 (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you are noting that a slave is relatively "low and powerless" in position relative to that slave's owner, that is a correct understanding of the relationship. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ginger Conspiracy (talk) is a slave to improving the encyclopedia 19:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a slave belonging to a particular person, or to a person at all. In the belonging-to-someone category, as WikiDao suggests, you're about as powerless as you can be, since you are owned by another person and subject to their will. Slaves have been mistreated throughout history. I don't have to know an individual slave, or the individual owner of a tobacco farm or cotton plantation, to see a slave as at the mercy of his surroundings.

Slavery existed in Shakespeare's time, and for centuries afterward. Even if it had not, it had existed in the past, and made vivid metaphors:

• You are all recreants and dastards,and delight to live in slavery to the nobility... (Henry VI)
• Of being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery, of my redemption thence... (Othello)
• The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service; there resides, to make me slave to it... (The Tempest)

In the first example, "slavery to the nobility" isn't a fact so much as a description of a certain kind of behavior. In the third example, Ferdinand is expressing his willingness to give up his own desires for another's.

As Robert Burns wrote:

Is there, for honest poverty,

[anyone] that hangs his head, and a' that?

The coward slave, we pass him by

We dare be poor, for a' that...

One interpretation: if you are ashamed of yourself because you're poor, then you're treating yourself as someone of no worth and no will of your own--as a slave. --- OtherDave (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that the question has been fully addressed, partly because perhaps it wasn't posed as well as it could have been. Slave as an insult doesn't just mean "low and powerless"; it has something of "low and treacherous".

But the gold sun of freedom grew darkened at Ross, and it set by the Slaney's red waves

And Wexford, stripped naked, hung high on the cross, with her heart pierced by traitors and slaves

Possibly slaves, being desperate and having little to lose, were thought to be especially likely to behave treacherously? --Trovatore (talk) 02:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I ought to point out that nobody would have thought of themselves as a slave in Tudor England, although many workers were indentured to their employers in conditions resembling slavery. The slave trade had been proscribed in 1102 - see Slavery in Britain and Ireland. Slavery was later allowed in the colonies, but African slaves brought to Britain were the subject of legal battles throughout the 18th Century; "Soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free." was a judgement from 1763. Alansplodge (talk) 22:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

In Shakespeare's day, 'slave' did not refer to chattel slavery (the absolute ownership of one person by another), but was a more general term referring to people who were for one reason or another not completely free. for instance, serfdom was a form of slavery - serfs were farm laborers bound to a particular estate or region and not allowed to seek work elsewhere, but beyond that basically free to do as they liked. in Shakespeare's time, slave would have meant someone trapped in a particular position in life and obligated to do an assortment of menial tasks, often someone surly, resentful, vindictive - think DMV employee or any other low-level government worker and you'll understand the kind of people Willy was referring to. --Ludwigs2 00:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Reference the WP article on Serfdom; "In England, the end of serfdom began with Tyler’s Rebellion and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574." However, everyone would have known about real slaves, just as we know about slavery today without actually having any. Additionally, if you lived near the coast, there was a risk of being abducted into the Islamic slave trade by Barbary Corsairs. Alansplodge (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Christmas Day for Jewish families

What do Jewish families (in Europe, North America, Austalasia etc) tend to do at home on Christmas Day? I'm curious. Is it just like any other day, or do the kids still get Christmas presents, or do they eat better, have a Christmas tree, anything like that? I'm aetheist. Thanks 92.15.27.229 (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nittel Nacht contains some slightly relevant material. In 2010 Christmas Day falls on the Jewish Sabbath. This could have bearing on the activities. Bus stop (talk) 19:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It probably varies greatly from family to family. Some may celebrate Christmas as a sort of "civic" version, much as they would celebrate "Thanksgiving" or "Fourth of July" in America. Others may do nothing special (after all, what do Christians do on Yom Kippur?). There's a regular cultural meme out there about Jewish people going to Chinese Restaurants on Christmas day (being that neither Jewish nor non-Christian chinese people tend to celebrate it). The meme predates the Internet by a long way; googleing "jews chinese food christmas" turns up lots of hits: [1]. --Jayron32 19:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See especially "Kung Pao Kosher Comedy"[2]. PhGustaf (talk) 22:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

About the same thing that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, Scientologists and Raelians do on Festivus. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 19:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Where where you on Christmas Day? Bus stop (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a number of close Jewish friends, and I've never heard of Nittel Nacht before. I don't think it is observed much in the United States. Jayron32's answer is the most accurate, to my knowledge. In the United States, some Jews celebrate a secularized Christmas with a tree, some ignore the holiday altogether and treat it as a meaningless secular holiday. Maybe they will sleep late, get together with friends, or pursue a hobby. And I have known Jewish friends to order Chinese food on Christmas. Marco polo (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I doubt that Nittel Nacht is observed anywhere in 2010. My guess is that this article, referenced in our Nittel Nacht article, is incorrect when it says, "While there are still some Orthodox groups that observe Nittel Nacht, these are not widespread customs among modern Jews." Bus stop (talk) 22:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Given that many secular locations in the United States close on the holiday (due to having majority of their employees being Christian), some Jewish families just stay at home and enjoy a day together. Some movie theaters do remain open, as Christmas is a big money-maker for them, so that's an option. And, as Marco polo pointed out, Chinese restaurants tend to be open since many of them are not Christians. Also, going to a public park is an option, if the weather is agreeable. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I find this a fairly interesting and informative article concerning the supposed association between Chinese food and Jews. Bus stop (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The joke, as noted above, is that Jews "celebrate" Christmas by eating at Chinese restaurants and going to movie theaters, since those establishments are often open on Christmas. Some Jews volunteer at hospitals and places on 12/25. Others offer to take the place of co-workers scheduled to work a holiday shift. Of course many Jews have friends or relatives by marriage who have Christmas parties they might attend. And there's always a mid-major college football bowl game or meaningless NFL game to watch on TV, if you're not into the non-stop White Christmas marathon or fixed shot of a fireplace. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, note that in large parts of northern Europe, as well as (I have been told) the "Scandinavian" parts of the US Midwest, Christmas is mainly celebrated on Christmas Eve, the 24th, and so many "Christians" might not spend all of 25th with their families either (though of course, there are often family happenings on the 25th as well). Jørgen (talk) 08:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1gNYU27Tk Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 06:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Eternal Hell, yet Resurrection of the dead too

Various christian schisms

According to Christian doctrine, bad people roast in hell for eternity, yet everyone will be resurrected too. How are these two contradictory things resolved? Thanks 92.29.124.17 (talk) 22:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Easily. There is no such thing as the Christian doctrine - different sects have different doctrines. In early Christianity, resurrection was understood to be bodily resurrection, and would happen before judgement day, so that all can be judged. I don't think the idea that people go to heaven or hell directly after death is in any of the better thought-out Christian strains - it seems to be mostly just folklore. Hell in particular is not very well-attested in the bible, anyways, at least in the original texts. It's often an artefact of translation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea of judgement (sometimes just interim judgement) that immediately follows death (rather than some conscious or unconscious waiting period until the final Day of Judgement) is "particular judgment". Indeed, it's not clear which modern denominations believe this, but I'm not sure that it's regarded as downright false either. 87.115.159.188 (talk) 01:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Out of interest, what makes you think that the resurrection of the body is incompatible with eternity in hell? Do you also think it's incompatible with eternity in heaven? Marnanel (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you ask me (the indent suggests otherwise), I don't. But it is incompatible with the current "granny is in heaven" belief, while granny's body is indeed in a casket 6 feet under. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not really incompatible, at least if you use heaven in a broad sense to mean a place of reward. The notion of a reasonable chunk of evangelical, dispensationalist, pre-millenarian thought seems to run roughly like this: If you die before the Day of Resurrection, your soul winds up in a place of reward or punishment, though not its final place. For the wicked, it can be called Hell, but it's not the Lake of Fire. For the just, it's a nice section of Hades called Paradise or perhaps the Bosom of Abraham.

Then on the Resurrection Day, you get restored to your body and physically resurrected and judged. The righteous are then transformed into their spiritual bodies and ascend to Heaven in the strict sense of the word, whereas the wicked are tossed into the Lake of Fire. --Trovatore (talk) 03:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I seem to have forgotten about the Rapture. I'm not exactly clear on how that relates. Are the raptured also resurrected? I don't think they can be, because they aren't dead in the first place. Do they re-descend to Earth to take part in the General Judgment? --Trovatore (talk) 03:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Which Christian doctrine? Smallman12q (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was asking 92.29, who seems to think they're incompatible; I didn't get the idea that you (Stephan) thought they were. (As Smallman12q may be pointing out above, it's rather difficult to understand what people mean by "Christian doctrine" when a belief may be held, sometimes unthinkingly, by a large proportion of those who profess and call themselves Christians, but not be supportable from any church's official teaching, or the Bible, or any of the creeds.) I'm not terribly sure what light the graph is supposed to shed on the question. Marnanel (talk) 23:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.multilingualbible.com/ecclesiastes/9-5.htm and http://www.multilingualbible.com/ecclesiastes/9-10.htm.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

There is little general agreement among Christians regarding the End of Days. Revelation and Daniel and such "apocalyptic" books like that, which deal with the End Times, and largely impenetrable and extremely hard to extract meaning from. Even among hardcore theologians, its a topic of great consternation. --Jayron32 03:19, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the specific article is Christian Universalism... AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed there is contention among theologians on this topic. Inherent immortality of the soul is a doctrine associated with Platonism and was adopted by Thomas Aquinas when attempting to codify Christian Theology well after the first century apostles had died. The idea of bad people going to one place and good people going to another is even older. This concept of Divine judgment is also associated with the semi-semitic Greeks. In the Bible one theme comes to the fore.

That of a resurrection of the "righteous and unrighteous" will occur ([3]). 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 states that the unrighteous one will undergo "everlasting destruction." It does indeed mention a flaming fire, but this can either be literal or figurative; fire can symbolize destruction. Furthermore, King Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes chapter 9, specifically verse 5, that the dead are conscious of nothing. It does not say the dead are in heaven and hell.

No matter how you slice it, Sola scriptura is not an acceptable argument, and you must have faith and not be indecisive on this matter. It is either one or the other. Weigh the arguments for either point of view and see which stands up to scrutiny. schyler (talk) 05:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If the bible was a witness statement, it would get thrown out of court for contradicting itself so much. 92.29.126.195 (talk) 10:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

There's also the question of what constitutes good and evil.Smallman12q (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, its just like Dungeons & Dragons. 92.24.188.27 (talk) 15:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.29.126.195 (talk)